Today is the second class in our current four class set. We will begin with a casual discussion. Our reading this week is about a walrus and our listening is an NPR story with a transcript. The listening is about diving. Read and listen at the same time. We will have listening discussion questions in class. We are taking a break from our phrasal verbs. I will introduce a speaking exercise in class.

Click HERE for the reading

EMILY KWONG, HOST:

Hey, Short Wavers. Before we get started, quick little favor to ask - you can help us shape the future of SHORT WAVE and other NPR podcasts by completing a short, anonymous survey. It's a chance for you to tell us what you like and don't like and how we can serve you better. And we want to hear from everyone, whether you're a day one or brand-new listener. It's an awesome responsibility, but I trust you with it. Just go to npr.org/podcastsurvey. Again, that's npr.org/podcastsurvey. Thanks. Now on to the show.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MADDIE SOFIA, HOST:

You're listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KWONG: Emily Kwong here with Maddie Sofia. Hi, Maddie.

SOFIA: Hey there, co-hostie (ph).

KWONG: So what did you bring us today?

SOFIA: OK. Emily, as you know, my partner Natalie (ph) has been spending roughly 28 to 36 hours a day on TikTok since she first got into it. Are you familiar with TikTok? Do you know about it?

KWONG: I do. And I stay far away because I would not be able to...

SOFIA: Smart.

KWONG: ...Stop going on TikTok...

SOFIA: Smart. Smart.

KWONG: ...If I started.

SOFIA: OK.

KWONG: Yeah.

SOFIA: So one day, she busts into our bedroom and looks me dead in the eyes and says, why didn't you tell me vegetables aren't real?

KWONG: So had you guys been smoking or...

SOFIA: So anyways...

KWONG: Like what's going on there?

SOFIA: So I'm like, Natalie...

KWONG: OK.

SOFIA: ...Darling, sweet baby, angel face, sugar butt, what are you talking about right now? And it turns out that she had stumbled on something that shook me to my core - that vegetables aren't real from a botanical perspective. Vegetable is just a word that we have made up and given to parts of plants that we eat.

KWONG: What? I thought vegetables came from types of plants.

SOFIA: Yeah.

KWONG: Vegetable plants.

SOFIA: Yeah. Me too.

KWONG: Like in gardens.

SOFIA: So, naturally, after she told me this, this became my No. 1 personal and professional priority. I stopped everything, called up a botanist named Molly Edwards. She's a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard studying plant genetics and evolution. Emily, just listen to the beginning of our conversation.

So, Molly, can you tell me, like, what exactly are vegetables, like, from a botanical perspective?

MOLLY EDWARDS: Oh, Maddie, vegetables aren't anything...

(LAUGHTER)

EDWARDS: ...From a botanical (laughter) perspective.

KWONG: Wow.

EDWARDS: I'm so sorry.

KWONG: Brutal.

SOFIA: Wait, so, like, they don't - like, for - to a botanist, they're like, we do not recognize the vegetable.

EDWARDS: Correct. Yeah.

SOFIA: Wow.

EDWARDS: It does not have a botanical definition.

SOFIA: So unlike fruits, which do have a very specific botanical definition which we can get into later, vegetables are pretty much just a culinary category - you know, still useful, still delicious but not really, like, a thing, strictly speaking.

KWONG: I'm going to need some time with this, Maddie.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: This is different.

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SOFIA: I know. I know, right?

KWONG: This is an adjustment.

SOFIA: Yeah. Don't worry. Molly says it happens to everybody.

EDWARDS: Before I was shaking people to their core, I got shook to my core in my first botany classes. This was - I still remember how mind-blowing it was to learn that vegetables are a lie.

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SOFIA: Forget everything you know about vegetables, Emily, because this is a deep well. It just - it keeps getting weirder.

KWONG: All right. Today on the show, Maddie tells us weird stuff about vegetables.

SOFIA: I'm going to change the way you think about broccoli. I'll tell you that right now.

KWONG: And we'll share a bit of listener mail from you, dear SHORT WAVE nerds.

SOFIA: This is SHORT WAVE, the daily science podcast from NPR.

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KWONG: OK, Maddie. So before the break, you told me something devastating...

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: ...That vegetables aren't their own thing. It's just a made-up culinary term for the edible parts of plants.

SOFIA: Correct. And one of the coolest and most, initially, unsettling things I learned from Molly is that vegetables are technically plant organs.

EDWARDS: Yeah. So vegetables can come from lots of different plant organs, especially from, like, leaves, stems and roots.

SOFIA: Leaves, stems, roots, flowers, the plant stuff we eat - organs.

KWONG: I mean, I know that organs are just, like, functional units that carry out a task. But I'm not sure I love thinking of kale as an organ.

SOFIA: I know, right? It's awesome. And plants are special because they have the ability to keep producing these organs over and over, which is, obviously, very different from humans.

EDWARDS: So all of our organs and body plan are established before we're born. And we come out, you know, with our organs, our body plan, our head where our head is, our tail where our tail is. And we're good to go. But plants are actually continually going through development over their entire lives. And they're always producing new organs.

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KWONG: Wow.

SOFIA: I know, right? They can do this because they have oodles of stem cells. They're different from human stem cells, obviously. But those cells allow them to just keep producing new organs.

KWONG: Can you imagine just growing a brain as you...

SOFIA: I know.

KWONG: ...Please or knocking out a kidney? Wouldn't that be nice?

SOFIA: I know. I know. Sometimes plants are just, like, way cooler than us. You know what I mean?

KWONG: Oh, for sure.

SOFIA: OK. So this brings us to another piece of this, which is that many of your favorite vegetables, Emily Kwong, are actually all derived from the same species.

EDWARDS: The most extreme example of this is Brassica oleracea, which is broccoli. But it's also kale and cauliflower and broccolini and Romanesco and collard greens and Brussels sprouts.

KWONG: That's a long list.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: So cauliflower and collard greens are from the same plant?

SOFIA: Yeah. And we pretty much eat as much of this plant as we can. Like, when you're eating kale, collard greens, cabbage, you're primarily eating Brassica leaves. Kohlrabi, you're eating the stem. Brussels sprouts are these things called auxiliary buds; broccoli - flower buds; cauliflower - aspiring flower buds that just haven't quite made it.

KWONG: Same, cauliflower, same.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: But like, Maddie, how is this possible?

SOFIA: OK.

KWONG: I don't understand.

SOFIA: Basically, it's because Brassica is awesome. And we took advantage of it.

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EDWARDS: Brassica as a genus has, like, a really wild genomic and genetic evolutionary history that led to it having a lot of sort of extra genetic variation hanging around that allowed all of these different cultivars to kind of explore this space of making different shapes and sizes of their organs.

KWONG: Explore the space.

EDWARDS: And then farmers could kind of harness that and say, like, oh, look at this weird plant. There's a weird mutant that came about. Like, I kind of like the way its leaves look. I'm going to take that and breed it and hope to get that new organ shape and its babies.

KWONG: Wow. So we're responsible for vegetables.

SOFIA: We're responsible. I mean, it's not, like, that different from dog breeds in a way. I mean, those are all the same species. But obviously, there is a lot of variability from a to Chihuahua to a Great Dane, right?

KWONG: Sure.

SOFIA: Humans have just bred what they like.

KWONG: We have, we have. So to review, unlike fruits, vegetables are just a culinary term. There's no botanical classification.

SOFIA: Yup.

KWONG: And plants can produce these vegetables, aka organs, over and over because they have awesome stem cells.

SOFIA: Got it.

KWONG: And lastly, some plants are responsible for a lot of different vegetables.

SOFIA: Nailed it.

KWONG: This is a lot of new stuff to come to terms with.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: But vegetables - they're worth it. And I also appreciate knowing fruits have kind of a more straightforward definition. Like, they are as they appear. You know what I mean?

SOFIA: Well (laughter)...

KWONG: What? What is it?

SOFIA: Just because fruits are more straightforward doesn't mean you really know them, Emily. I mean, OK. So a fruit is technically a mature ripened ovary and all its contents. That's its definition. But we still get it wrong a lot when we're just talking about fruits.

EDWARDS: The delicious part of the strawberry isn't actually fruit at all. Yeah, so - because...

KWONG: (Laughter).

EDWARDS: ...Fruits are mature plant ovaries, and that red delicious part of the strawberry doesn't come from the ovary at all.

KWONG: What?

EDWARDS: And the true fruits of the strawberry are all those little things that you probably think are seeds...

SOFIA: Oh, my...

EDWARDS: ...On the outside of the strawberry.

KWONG: Wait, those seedy-looking things on the outside of strawberries are the fruit...

SOFIA: Yeah.

KWONG: ...Of the strawberry.

SOFIA: Yeah. So those little things on the outside of strawberries - those are the true fruit. And inside those little guys are the seeds.

KWONG: That is - that is unbelievable.

SOFIA: Free your mind, Emily. Free your mind. Just wait till you hear about berries. OK? Can you handle this right now?

KWONG: I don't think I can.

SOFIA: You can do it. You can do it. OK. So berries are a type of fruit that comes from a single ovary where all the layers of the fruit are fleshy.

EDWARDS: Tomatoes, zucchinis, avocados - these are all berries, and everything that we think of as a berry is not. So strawberries, raspberries, blackberries - none of those are berries.

SOFIA: You know, I appreciate knowing, but it's just a lot to adjust to, Molly, you know?

EDWARDS: I know. I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could take you back to an easier time.

(LAUGHTER)

SOFIA: Emily, I also wish I could take you back to an easier time, but do I?

KWONG: I mean, clearly not. You chose to bring me this.

SOFIA: Listen, I thought you would want to know. Don't you like knowing?

KWONG: I do like knowing. I do. I don't want my vegetable innocence back.

SOFIA: Right, right.

KWONG: So take it. Take it, universe.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: And I appreciate these fruits and veggies even more now.

SOFIA: Me, too.

KWONG: All right, you weirdo. I'm ready for some listener mail, and then we'll get out of here, you know?

SOFIA: Let's do it. Let's do it. OK. So we got some mail following our episode about the Brood X cicadas, the totally harmless and very abundant insects that have lived underground for 17 years and have now emerged in several places around the U.S. with the only goal - find a mate.

KWONG: Yeah. Maddie, I was walking the other day, and one hit me, like, right in the face. And honestly, I felt blessed.

SOFIA: (Laughter) That's the correct reaction, Emily Kwong. That's the correct reaction.

KWONG: So this first email is from Miranda (ph). It goes (reading) hi, SHORT WAVE team. I'm an avid science lover. And after listening to your episode on the Brood X cicadas, was looking forward in a science-y (ph) way to their return. Then I found a cicada in my bed. I can honestly say that after feeling sheer terror, I remember that episode and was calmed by knowing at least a bit more about this critter.

SOFIA: Yes.

KWONG: (Reading) I'm sure he wouldn't be happy to find me in his bed, either.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: (Reading) Then I remembered their creepy butt-eating fungus.

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: (Reading) Thank you for an exciting night. Miranda.

SOFIA: Thank you for an exciting night (laughter). I mean, you can't forget the butt-eating fungus, Kwong. Let's be real. I mean, after years of being underground, some of these cicadas emerge harboring a parasitic fungus that makes their butts fall off, and they can't mate. I mean, after all those years, can you imagine?

KWONG: It's a cruel twist of fate, cruel.

SOFIA: OK. So all this butt talk brings us to my piece of listener mail...

KWONG: Oh, can't wait. OK.

SOFIA: ...From Jenny (ph) and kiddo Lucy (ph). (Reading) Hi, SHORT WAVE. My kindergartner and I love your show. She's been yelling, quote, "and boom, the butt falls off"...

KWONG: (Laughter).

SOFIA: (Reading) ...Since we listened to the episode on Brood X. Thanks, again, Jenny and Lucy, age 5.

KWONG: Wow, Maddie, making people more tolerant of bugs and butts...

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: ...What an accomplishment. And what an episode. I hope you're happy with how it's resonating.

SOFIA: I mean, what can I say? Our work here is done, Emily. Our work here is done.

KWONG: That's it from us. If you want to send us some listener mail, go ahead and email us at shortwave@npr.org.

SOFIA: Special thanks to Molly Edwards for blowing our vegetable minds and being there for us, emotionally while she did it.

KWONG: Before we go, quick reminder that you can help us out by completing NPR's podcast survey. It's short. It's anonymous. It's data-gathering. And it will help us serve you better.

SOFIA: Just go to npr.org/podcastsurvey. Again, that's npr.org/podcastsurvey.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M GONNA EAT MY VEGETABLES")

ROBERT POREMBSKI: (Singing) I'm going to eat my vegetables. They keep me growing strong.

KWONG: This episode was produced by Thomas Lu, fact-checked by Indi Khera and Rasha Aridi and edited by big dog Gisele Grayson. The audio engineer for this episode was Neil Tevault. I'm Emily Kwong.

SOFIA: And I'm Maddie Sofia. Thanks for listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.

KWONG: OK. I feel like I owe Amanda Kwong an apology.

SOFIA: What?

KWONG: My sister texts me. And she's like - did you know broccoli is man-made?

SOFIA: (Laughter).

KWONG: And I was like, Amanda (ph), you need to stop doing this. And she was like, that can be a SHORT WAVE episode. And I was like, no.

SOFIA: You're in trouble, yeah.

KWONG: It's not a SHORT WAVE episode.